A Cruelty Special to Our Species: Poems

there were several times i wanted to just...close this book, put it out of my mind, forget i ever read it, because it was just too much. the sorrow, the unresolved grief. speaking of grief here are some lines from one of my favorites:

Colonial-era Japanese historians were sure
the white pottery and clothes of Korea show perpetual
sorrow. Poverty of color, incapacity for pleasure–
countless foreign invasions turned the people blank
and hollow, cursed to eternal mourning.